Diana Elle Blog

Before today's post let me just mention, During March and April I participated in Solidarity Sisters , and I was paired up with Marissa from Called to Mothering . As many of you already know, we moved to Germany because my husband received a scholarship to do his masters here. I rarely talk about what it's like being a mom here, and I took the plunge and participated in Marissa's Real Moms Real Challenges and talked about what it's like raising my child abroad , go read it-ASAP! So this year's 2016 challenge went okay, if I remember correctly, I started out at #624 on the list and ended up on #477, that;s quite a few that dropped out. All though I didn't publish 26 posts in April, I got close. There are some posts I will be publishing and adding to the list once I actually visit the places I'll be talking about! Posts that could use more love: Photo Spots in Hamburg Reeperbahn Altona Fischmarkt Stats General           ...

Hi! so todaz I have a guest post brought to you by Sasha. I met her during my first month living in Germany and today she accepted to give this blogging thing a try and will be talking about one of the activities you could do in Hamburg. One of the places we love to visit as a family is Wildpark Schwarze Berge, located in the town of Rosengarten. It is about 15 min by car or 30 min by bus from where we live .  The park was founded in 1969 and is open all year round.  Unlike the Hagenbecks Tierpark, the Wildpark Schwarze Berge is located in a low mountain, forested area and covers around 50 hectares of land. The animals are kept in large natural enclosures and there are about a hundred species of animals at the Wildpark including bisons, European wolves, lynxes and mooses. The Wildpark added the European brown bears in 2009. There are also petting areas with free-ranging goats, potbellied pigs and deers. In these petting areas, you can buy animal food at 1 euro a box ...

Welcome to Travel Tuesday! Since it's the last tuesday of  the month it is a prompt Tuesday and this month's theme is "Hidden Treasures" zoned in on hidden treasures of a particular location or region. Not to be confused with last October's prompt:  What’s a hidden gem that you have stumbled upon while exploring a new place? ------ Whenever somebody tells you "I'm going to Germany" and you ask them "oh, what city are you going to?" the answer is typically Berlin, Munich or Frankfurt, nobody ever really says they are going to visit Hamburg (unless they've previously heard about this wonderful city). So today I'm going to put Hamburg in your radar (if I haven't already). Foto: Pressebild.de/Bertold Fabricius Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and has a population of about 1.8 million. It has the second largest port in Europe and is referred to as the "Gateway to the World" as you may expect it...

S is for Strand Strand is the German word for beach, you can see my day trip to Scharbeutz beach or read on to take a virtual visit to one of Hamburg's Elbe beaches. I happened to visit this one with my German class. You start off at Landungsbrücken  then take either 62 HVV Ferry towards Finkenwerder and get off at Neumuehlen. From the ferry, you have great views of the Hamburg skyline and sprawling port area. You will be able to see port facilities  on the other side of the river and if your lucky, passing container ships up close. Once you get off it's just a matter of walking down towards the beach and you've made it! Enjoy the views and take many pictures! Have you ever visited a "fake" beach? Tweet Check out my other Hamburg posts for the A to Z Challenge:

If you're walking along Hamburg's St. Pauli district, you will find the most famous street (in Hamburg):  Reeperbahn . The Reeperbahn (as I already mentioned) is big in regards to Hamburg's nightlife , you'll find many great bars, restaurants, theaters, and clubs here, but did you know it also houses the city's red-light district? Yes, it's true and although it is very different to the Red Light District in Amsterdam, the area with prostitutes is considerably smaller. and  women are not allowed to walk through it. But it has some similarities, here you will find sex shops/museums, erotic theaters, and strip clubs.  The St. Pauli district is the second most popular attraction in Hamburg, after the Harbor . This wide-ranging mix makes the Reeperbahn a fascinating place to visit for travelers and locals alike.  If you plan on visiting here are a couple of tips: - The nightlife in the Reeperbahn doesn't start until around eight or nine p.m...

So, I was going to skip this letter of the alphabet since my first option for the letter "q" was not inspiring me and I didn't want to bore you with another "meh" post.  But then I saw this post on the A to Z Challenge blog and decided to do a quiz about Hamburg to test your knowledge of this city, and some fun facts at the end of the post. Loading... Here are some fun facts about Hamburg: Hamburg is Germany's second largest city and home to 1,8 million people. It is located in the North of the country. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is said that Hamburg has more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined, with more than 2300 bridges. The Hamburg City Hall has six more rooms than Buckingham palace. Hamburg has Germany's largest port and is named the country's "Gateway to the World". Miniature Wonderland holds a world record with over 12.000 meters of model train tracks. How'd you do on the qu...

Planten un Blomen (plants and flowers) is the name of the green belt (an invisible "border" around an area preventing development there) stretching alongside the city center all the way down to the harbor. Some of the "main attractions" at Planten un Blomen are a Japanese garden, an apothecary's garden, different lakes tropical greenhouses, a skating rink, crazy golf, a huge playground for the kids,  and pony rides on Sunday afternoons. It also houses several cafés which offer coffee and snacks. Some special events include dancing on a Sunday afternoon, free concerts every weekend throughout the summer in the music pavillion and a Wasserlichtspiele, a combination of fountains, colored lights, and music on the lake in the middle of the park. I've visited this park on different occasions and always discover something new, it's a good place to spend an afternoon, you can buy yourself an ice cream cone and walk around and explore it a bit......

O is for Opportunities If this is the first time stopping by this blog and you are interested in seeing more of what to do in Hamburg , you're in luck! Today's post is all about " Photo Opportunities in Hamburg " and with it I am going to be linking up to many of the recent posts regarding this city that I have recently talked about. I love taking pictures when visiting a new city, and having an idea of what I want to do ahead of time is always good. If you have a trip to Hamburg scheduled soon and are looking for the best and most photographed spots in this city then keep reading, i'm sure you'll find many interesting places. I even included a map at the end of the post for location references. Landmarks The Jungfernstieg area, especially with the city hall in the background. Landungsbrucken, hop on a ferry and take plenty of pictures with different backgrounds. The Harbor Das Dockland, an architectural masterpiece. You will pass it when ...

A Museum I recommend you to go to when visiting Hamburg is "Miniature Wonderland." It is basically a huge exhibition showing miniature copies of the USA, different parts of Germany, and Europe including the Alps, Scandinavia, and a new section of Italy which is almost ready!  When I celebrated my first birthday in Germany we were going to go to the zoo, but since it was winter many of the animals weren't going to be outside, so we opted for visiting Miniature wonderland instead. We showed up and it turned out you have to book tickets ahead of time to visit during a certain time frame. so we ended up waiting there until it was finally time to let us go inside. The first thing we saw when we came inside was a timeline showing us the history of this place, from it's first moments to today.  The next exhibition is Germany's history; you can also see a timeline of Berlin before-during-after WWII.  We went to Miniatur Wunderland for a second time this pas...